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FRIDAY FEATURE: ‘Swinging For the Fences’ with New Customized IMAX® Countdown

Aug 12, 2016

Andrew Stewart | Manager, Corporate Communications

Hey IMAX fans and welcome back to Friday Feature!

For this week’s post, I thought it would be great to give you an inside look at our newest IMAX® countdown inspired by Warner Bros. Pictures’ Suicide Squad, which is now playing in IMAX® theatres worldwide.

In case you haven’t yet seen Suicide Squad in IMAX, the film features the customized new countdown in place of the traditional one. It’s a colorful thrill-ride—and our fifth movie-themed customized countdown—set in a Gotham-esque environment meant to be told from the perspective of YOU—the viewer. Take a look!

To get an insider’s look into the making of the countdown, I spoke with Jason Haffley, an executive producer with OneNinth, the L.A.-based creative agency in charge of the production.

Haffley describes the countdown as a product of “swinging for the fences” in terms of the team’s overall customization efforts.

“It was a great undertaking, but we really wanted to do something that hadn’t been done before,” he adds.

Fun factoid: The Suicide Squad countdown features nearly nine million polygons (simply, multi-sided shapes rendered in the animation process) and thousands of texture maps, which are more than 20 times greater than in any other countdown.

In order to make the countdown feel organic to the movie and The IMAX Experience®, Haffley says he and his team sought to create something that fit within the entire DC features universe.

“We wanted to play up the [IMAX] ‘watch a movie or be a part of one’ mantra,” Haffley says.

That added a lot of pressure, Haffley says, knowing that the countdown was made to be seen in IMAX—and in some cases, 3D.

“If we were designing for a regular two-dimensional [theatrical] experience, we would have designed differently,” Haffley says. “But knowing that this was going to live on an IMAX screen and [mostly] in 3D, we wanted to make sure we were bringing in elements that would show off [The IMAX Experience®].”

It’s another awesome component to seeing a movie in IMAX that makes your experience a truly unique one!

Make sure you check out the recent /Film article for a look at our past IMAX countdowns. Look forward to seeing you at an IMAX movie!